As Biden visits, Chinese push back over air zone

BEIJING - Chinese leaders pushed back at visiting Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday over what they assert is their right to control a wide swath of airspace in the bitterly contested East China Sea. But the Chinese also indicated they had not decided how aggressively to enforce their so-called air defense identification zone, which has ignited tensions with Japan.

Shuttling from one feuding neighbor to the other, Biden arrived here from Tokyo to urge China's president, Xi Jinping, to show restraint in the restricted zone, which Biden said the United States regarded as illegitimate and a provocation.

After 5½ hours of meetings, in which Biden laid out the U.S. case against China's action and Xi made a forceful counterargument, senior administration officials said, "President Xi took on board what the vice president said. It's up to China, and we'll see how things will unfold in the coming days and weeks."

Xi's response suggested China and Japan may be able to manage a standoff that had threatened to escalate dangerously, with China scrambling fighter jets to intercept Japanese airliners flying off the Chinese coast.

In brief public remarks midway through the meetings, Biden made no reference to the dispute, but said the relationship between the U.S. and China "ultimately has to be based on trust."

Xi, who cultivated unusually personal ties to Biden when he was China's vice president, sounded a more upbeat note about the broader relationship.

He welcomed Biden as "my old friend" and said nothing directly about the air defense zone.

For Biden, however, China's sudden action last month upended what was meant to be tour of Asia with a wide-ranging agenda. Instead, he has had to walk a fine line: defending an ally and rebuking a potential adversary.

A day earlier in Tokyo, Biden condemned China's action as an effort to "unilaterally change the status quo" and said it had raised "the risk of accidents and miscalculation."